THEMES AND IDEAS
Bureaucracy
The Screwtape Letters describes Hell as a bureaucratic system. It is a system with a multitude of rules as to how to tempt humans to Hell's side. There are rules for tempters to follow and there are rules or laws that humans follow. The Law of Undulation and the Law of Diminishing Returns are two that Screwtape describes and can be used by the tempter.
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In much of his description, Screwtape sounds like he is quoting textbooks or books of rules. He uses many logical phrases like "if, then" to describe the actions a tempter should take. He also sounds as though he is describing vocabulary. There are many times he describes phrases or his rules where he defines it and uses it in an example. He sounds very much like a teacher leading a student. He is very logical and bureaucratic. His descriptions go like this: if the patient does this then you can do this to tempt him while the Enemy will probably do this. He speaks in step by step instructions.
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Another level to the bureaucracy is Screwtape's word choice. Not only does he sound like a teacher in his descriptions, but he also comes off as a medical teacher. He calls the human "patient," as though he and other tempters are trying to help or fix the humans. They are not trying to help them though, they are trying to make them sin and go to Hell where they will be eaten. He is similar to a chef in that he wants them to taste good; to have sinned enough to make them go to Hell but also to taste of more than a piece of trash. But, we find out that that is what they are mostly left with in his toast.
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Using those particular choices in descriptions and words, Lewis paints not only Hell as a bureaucracy full of instructions, rules, and superiors, but it paints those real-life systems as Hell-like. Educational and medical systems in real life are bureaucratic in that they do have hierarchies, rules, and specific ways of doing things, but both of those groups seek to help people rather than hinder them. They, on a large scale, do not seek to harm people, as the idea of Hell does. It is an interesting connection, but not an absurd one. There have been many schools and medical practices that have been out for their own good and taught immoral things to their students. In fact, there have been schools deeply rooted in Christianity and strictly teach their students to act in a way that fits their particular Christianity, often through the use of intense studying and punishment. It connects not only school and Hell, but also school, Hell, and Christianity.
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Heaven and Earth, Time and Change
Screwtape describes the two realms as life on earth and the eternal. The eternal realm, composed of Heaven and Hell, is outside of time. The creatures on earth are in time, while devils and angels are not stuck in time. They experience everything as Now (explained more in chapter 27). The other part of being in time is to be able to change. Humans are "amphibians" meaning they are part eternal and part animal (more in chapter 8).
Lewis is then making the claim that angels and devils do not change. Also, that devils simply exist and angels were once humans. He is claiming that humans can either become angels or become the food for devils. It raises questions of how devils came to exist. It could follow the more accepted view of devils as Satan's workers and that Satan fell from heaven somehow. It would rely on there being a God who created Satan, who then fell and created his own spawn. God then created humans to be "in his image" and become angels. But, Satan figured out a way to steal and eat them as vengeance to God. It's speculation as to what Lewis was thinking based on other common beliefs.
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This connection Lewis makes between the Enemy being outside of time and humans being in time also makes claims on free will. Screwtape says that the Enemy experiences everything as Now, so he could not hear a man's prayer one day and create it the next. The enemy has no "one day" or "next." He is in Now and sees everything that has happened in time. Thus, if he sees every action at the same time, he cannot affect that action. He cannot make it happen or predestine it. Thus, humans must have free will that he sees in action constantly.
Love and Marriage
Screwtape emphasizes jealousy, distrust, and tension within the family. He believes family to be very important in temptation. It is often the family that makes a person the way they are, so not trusting them and hating them will cause a human much suffering and pain. The more pride and envy, along with the rest of the seven deadly sins, the better for tempting.
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Screwtape also values fantasy in tempting. Fantasy greatly has to do with marriage, love, and sex. He explains to Wormwood that they do not want humans marrying people who will spiritually better them. They want people to marry more for fantasy or love. Marriage does not require love for Christians. Marriage out of love is often full of temptation because men marry women who may not be good for them. They may be married out of lust that is believed to be love. Marriage is monogamous. Adultery and sex before marriage are both temptations.
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Screwtape does not really understand love. He connects it to the Law of Undulation first by explaining that humans can fall in love when at a high in the Law of Undulation. He connects it to sexual temptation and marriage. He says that the Enemy wants abstinence or monogamy and that Hell's side created the need for love to marry. He describes it in connection to natural competition. Love comes out of a united family and when the good of one person is good for another. When two people come together and are good for each other, they can fall in love, thus marrying spiritually beneficial people can lead to love. But, Screwtape does not want that. He wants to heighten competition and personal pride.
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Screwtape later ponders whether free will is the secret behind true love. Does love come about because of random choices, or is it somehow predestined? It does not seem like that is possible because free will has already been "proven" because of time. While love is considered by most people today to be of free will and quite spiritual, Screwtape describes it mostly as a Hell creation. He says that the Enemy created the pleasures, so he created sex and shared happiness, but Screwtape says that Hell created many fantasies within love. It raises the question of what exactly is love? It still seems fuzzy.
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Lewis raises questions of love as predestined or if it is needed at all for marriage. His description of marriage with love coming afterward as the Enemy's preference and love causing marriage as Hell's preference seems backwards. Nowadays, love is wanted for marriage because a loveless marriage often fails or makes people miserable, which is what you would think Hell wants. Marriage with love is often happier and lasts longer, so we would think that is what the Enemy wants. But, that is not the way Lewis wrote it. He may have done that to be humorous and parodying Christianity. He may have done it because it was the sixties and he wanted to reemphasize abstinence and marriages out of helpfulness to the families. Whatever his plan was, the text made the connection between love and Hell, a connection that is unnerving and unexpected.